6/24/2013

A few things that escaped my notice over the last few days that are worth keeping track of, if only because of the talents behind the camera: Snow White and the Huntsman director Rupert Sanders, and Contraband helmer Baltasar Kormakur.
Sanders is set to direct an adaptation of the upcoming Frederick Forsyth espionage thriller, The Kill List. Producers picked up the rights to the book barely a month ago and are moving on this quickly, so there's a good chance this will be next for Sanders and his other projects will have to wait awhile. Last fall he came aboard to helmThe Juliet, a sci-fi "Bonnie & Clyde" film, but we haven't heard anything about it since. The Kill List follows a U.S. Special Forces "tracker" hunting down an extreme fundamentalist terrorist.

Icelandic director Baltasar Kormakur has a couple of films in the pipeline, so let's start with the new one. He has an untitled crime film in the works that is based on a real life scandal involving corrupt politicians releasing criminals from prison as hired killers. The story inspired the recent Filipino film, On the Job, but Kormakur's version won't be a remake.

Before that, Kormakur has Christian Bale all geared up to star in Everest, which details the disastrous 1996 expedition to scale the titular mountain, which was hit by
sudden, blinding storms leading to the deaths of eight climbers. Our friend Brendon Connelly over at Bleeding Cool recently spoke to Kormakur, who revealed that Simon Beaufoy (Slumdog Millionaire, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire) is penning the script.

Kormakur recently wrapped up the action comedy 2 Guns with Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg. I wish his American work was half as inspired as what he does back home, but maybe Everest will change all of that. He does seem to have a great command of films involving the ferocity of Mother Nature, such as with his deep sea survival film, The Deep. You can check out our review of that here.